It’s only March.
I’m stepping way out onto the ledge and declaring it still too soon to throw in the towel on the 2025 Cubs.
Too soon to be a bit concerned, though? To be underwhelmed, ill at ease, doubtful?
Never. Chicago sports watchers refer to that as existing.
It might not be the most wonderful Cubs season. They’re commonly regarded as the closest thing to a good team in a mediocre division that’s probably the only one in the National League they’d have any chance whatsoever of winning. Put a different way, betting sites are rating them no higher than sixth among NL teams — the Dodgers, Braves, Mets, Phillies and Padres come first — in odds of getting to the World Series. Some sites have the Diamondbacks ahead of the Cubs, too.
One of the most cherished pastimes of professional athletes, coaches and managers is telling the media how little they care about how we assess the outlooks of their teams. To be sure, not all of us are prophets or soothsayers. But what does it tell you that 59 MLB.com “experts” predicted the outcomes of the 2025 postseason and not one of them had the Cubs making it to the World Series? Or that 28 ESPN “experts” performed the same exercise and all had the Cubs falling short of the ultimate stage? CBS Sports, USA Today, Yahoo — the Cubs went 0-for-17 among those outlets, too. Somewhere, someone is picking the Cubs to get back where they haven’t been since 2016, but that person almost certainly has at least three Cubs-themed tattoos and a Pedro Strop shrine in their bedroom.
On one hand, it feels a bit silly to be invoking the Fall Classic in March. On the other, isn’t that clearly how the Dodgers think 24/7/365? Isn’t that what teams spending upward of $100 million more than the Cubs on player payroll are all about?
Some teams behave as if “October starts in March,” as former Cubs president Theo Epstein once proclaimed. The Cubs don’t have a strong enough team to put that sort of season-long pressure on themselves. There is no great slogan for the Cubs’ current approach, which is to nibble around the margins, try to improve incrementally in the win column and, if all goes perfectly, get into the postseason as — let’s face it — long shots to do anything memorable from there.
There’s enough pressure on these Cubs as it is. It’s playoffs or bust for president Jed Hoyer, who admits to feeling “increased pressure” in the final year of his contract to get the team to the postseason for the first time since he took the baton from Epstein heading into 2021. Craig Counsell’s own reputation will take a damaging hit if the Cubs fall short in his second go-round as an $8 million-a-year manager. The strain of having to perform at their ceiling to have any sort of meaningful success will be felt by the players, too.
The season-opening losses to the Dodgers in Tokyo weren’t major setbacks in and of themselves, but they were reminders of the vast quality gap the Cubs are facing even in a competitive window.
Also, a slow start is the very last thing these Cubs need given the schedule they’ll face during a significant chunk of games against reputedly stronger opponents. Fourteen of their first 29 games are against the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, with two series against the Padres and one each against the Rangers and the Phillies. The only three games in this stretch when they won’t be facing a reputed playoff contender will be against the Athletics in Sacramento, Calif., starting Monday.
There’s little use harkening back to the last time the Cubs won a playoff game, in 2017, other than to demonstrate that it really has been a while. Willson Contreras homered. Javy Baez homered twice. Joe Maddon got ejected. Jake Arrieta got the “W.” All except Arrieta would all be around quite a bit longer.
Maddon used to say, “Don’t let the pressure exceed the pleasure.” When was the last time a Cubs season felt or worked out that way? In 2018, the offense “broke,” as Epstein put it, and the Brewers stole the division crown. In 2019, “October starts in March” was the rallying cry even though the front office had cut off spending, bad free-agent signings having come home to roost. In 2020, nobody hit and core players’ contracts became elephants in the room. In 2021, the writing was on the wall until all the fan favorites were traded.
The 2023 team collapsed down the stretch and gagged away a wild-card berth by one game. Last year was simply a dud.
Did I mention I’m not throwing in the towel yet?
It’s not even April, you know. Maybe, just maybe, April will begin a whole new story.